By Sarah Matthews 

Wimmera residents who require transport for personal and medical appointments will benefit from a $20,000 donation to Centre for Participation.

Horsham Apex Club 15 donated the money – which was used to buy a new car – to the community volunteer, promotions and advocacy agency.

Centre for Participation acting chief executive Robbie Millar welcomed the donation, which he said would primarily benefit the region’s 65 and older demographic, along with volunteer drivers.

“We have a lot of people who need shopping assistance, medical transport, assistance with personal caring and stuff like that,” he said.

“It’s really about having a vehicle that volunteers can use to take people to appointments and run errands.”

Mr Millar said the new vehicle would often be used to take residents to medical appointments in Ballarat or throughout the Wimmera.

He said medical appointment numbers had dropped off throughout the COVID-19 pandemic but were starting to pick up again.

“We can go wherever we’re needed,” he said.

“We often do regular medical appointments, where we might take people down to Ballarat every fortnight for regular check-ups, for example.”

Mr Millar said Centre for Participation’s Laneway café would also benefit from the donation. 

“The café does home-delivered meals, primarily for people who are over 65,” he said.

“We have volunteers drop those meals off, a little bit like a meals-on-wheels service, but a little more mainstream.”

Mr Millar said he was thrilled Horsham Apex Club had chosen to support his organisation.

“We only get funding to deliver our services, not to upgrade cars or upgrade our facilities,” he said.

“We’re forever trying to look at ways to get other sponsorship and philanthropic money in to support our core services.

“There are a couple of cars that actually need replacing, so we can replace those and make sure that we’ve got new vehicles for the volunteers to drive.”

Horsham Apex Club, a volunteer-based community service group, regularly donates significant sums to community groups or projects.

President Dylan Fulton said the club’s 17 members were pleased to support Centre for Participation and its valuable work in the community.

“We raised the money from different fundraising activities, such as our B and S ball, monthly paper drives and various barbecues at events in the past two years,” he said.

Mr Fulton said the club welcomed new members and encouraged people to message Apex Horsham Club 15 on Facebook for more information. 

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